Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 19 January 2010 10:00
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After surprisingly positive reports on the WinMo 6.5-powered HTC HD2
when it launched in the US late last year, the HD2 has launched in
Australia at last via Telstra, and with multi-touch capabilities along
with an amazingly fast and smooth experience, it’s hard to believe
you’re really using a Windows Phone instead of a jailbroken iPhone with
a WinMo skin!
HTC’s HD2 has arrived at last, exclusively via Telstra at the special launch price of $829 outright (despite the press release listing a $979 price point), as well as being available at $0 upfront on an $80 per month plan over 24 months, and will be available from other carriers from March 10, mere weeks before the next iPhone will likely emerge.
Ah, the Apple iPhone. Like pure and creamy dairy butter in a world of artificially yellowed margarine, the iPhone stands out as having revolutionised the smartphone industry like no other, with the competition still struggling to match the iPhone experience, let alone beat it.
Promising interfaces and operating systems like Google’s Android, Nokia’s Maemo 5, Palm’s WebOS and WinMo 6.5 mega-makeovers like HTC’s Sense UI in the new HTC HD2 have arrived to further whet the appetite of the smartphone loving public, but Apple still towers above them all - despite the alternatives offering features like proper multitasking, removable batteries and Flash support, amongst others.
These are all features and benefits that Apple could support, if it wanted to, and some of which it likely will in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 software and the iPhone 4.0 hardware.
But while we expect Apple is going to shock and awe once more with the iPhone 4, competitors like HTC, who are playing on both the Microsoft and Google side of the fence, are competing with Apple’s present and future today, and have to rapidly innovate to stay in the game, with the HTC HD2 the latest WinMo powered offering.
HTC has evolved its TouchFlo WinMo skin/interface into the Sense UI for both WinMo and Android operating systems on HTC’s own branded devices to differentiate itself from the competition, and on the HTC HD2, it really shows.
Combined with a really fast 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a capacitive 4.3-inch touch screen, multi-touch capabilities and a customised and improve Opera Mobile browser, HTC’s HD2 delivers an experience that feels as smooth as as iPhone.
It’s surprising and shocking because it’s not what you expect from any Windows Mobile phone, despite valiant efforts by companies like Samsung and HTC to dramatically improve the WinMo experience.
HTC’s implementation of Sense UI over WinMo 6.5 is superb, seemingly almost completely removing the traditional Windows Mobile/Win 3.1 experience of old.
I asked one of the HTC technical people at today’s launch to show me if any of the old WinMo interface remained, and one HTC fellow said that he’d looked and had only been able to find the “Task Manager” app in the settings which still looked the same.
In the demo during the launch, we also saw some great integration with email, meeting requests and the phone dialler app.
What happened was that there was a meeting request for a conference that included a call-in number and a pin.
Once the number was touched to dial, and dialling commenced, a note icon on-screen (once finger pressed) contained conference details from the meeting invite, along with the pin code clearly visible.
Another feature is the ability to set up a 5-way phone conference call, something Telstra says is exclusive to its network and clearly a useful business tool, especially when self-initiated conference calls over mobile phones are normally limited to 3 participants.
This kind of smooth integration is clearly being delivered by the magic of software and is easily duplicatable by Apple, Google, RIM, Nokia or anyone else, but it is nice to see Microsoft and HTC delivering it first, showing that despite falling interest in the Windows Mobile platform as it currently stands, Microsoft isn’t standing still and with its partners is setting up for a mega smartphone fight!
What else can the HD2 do, what “first” has Telstra offered HD2 users beyond exclusivity, what’s one very cool iPhone beating feature that’s so useful it’s amazing Apple’s not doing it, and what are some serious disappointments?
Please read on to page 2!
Having recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the laptop, Toshiba has delivered a clutch of new notebooks to the market. The Portege name has long been recognised as one of the premiere small notebooks on the market. We took their latest model, the R700, out for a spin. ...read more 
